Something old, something new: when people favor novelty over familiarity and how novelty affects creative processes

Abstract

This dissertation shows that besides our inherent preference for the safe and comfortable familiar, we also want something new from time to time. This preference seems to relate to context, motivational states, and the way we process novel and familiar stimuli. Possibilities for exploration, growth, and development offered by novel stimuli may appeal to us sometimes. While shifting between these two preferences, we are constantly being steered by our chronic as well as situationally induced motivations, social factors, and even perceptual variables, such as color. Furthermore, novelty can help us in creative processes, but can also work against us, depending on the kind of creativity we pursue. Summarizing, the studies demonstrate the value, characteristics, and effects of novelty, and add valuable insights to existing theory and the existing framework of empirical research on this subject